BANGKOK (Reuters) – Three explosions shook Bangkok’s business district on Thursday, wounding at least two people, witnesses said, raising tensions during a showdown between thousands of troops and anti-government protesters.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosions outside the headquarters of Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailand’s biggest agribusiness group, but witnesses said at least one foreigner was wounded along with a Thai woman.

Recently I covered the opening of Singapore’s first casino with my colleague Pablo Sanchez. It’s a big change for a city where gambling used to be illegal. You might be interested to know that to pacify folks who said it would lead to the moral downfall of Singapore, the government introduced an “entrance levy” of S$100 as a deterrent.

It only applies to Singaporeans and Permanent Residents, everyone else including foreigners who work here get to enter for free. Photography is banned inside and Pablo and I had barely 15 minutes on opening day to shoot as much as we could. It was complete chaos, as every other person with a still or video camera was trying to do the same thing.

Singapore can be a strange place to make pictures sometimes. As someone who’s lived here for nearly 5 years, on occasion my job as a photographer is affected in unusual ways.

Singapore is a place where rent-a-cops often don’t know the rules, other than “you’re wrong”. They’re really good at overstepping the bounds of their legal authority, and even though you know for a fact they are wrong and should just let you go about your work, no amount of reason or logical argument means anything to them. They are like the daleks in Doctor Who, out to exterminate photographers. Their authority as gatekeepers is final.

About Vivek

"I am one half of Reuters' two-man pictures team in Mumbai. In previous lives, I was a staff photographer based in Singapore from 2007, and a sub-editor on the Global Pictures Desk from 2005. Before that, I was a night shift taxi driver in Brisbane with a love for photojournalism. I grew up in New Zealand and Australia but returned to the country of my birth, India, on assignment in early 2011."